I love this church, and I have from the first time
that I came as a visitor. Me and my dear wife, after the
Lord was pleased to reveal the truth to us, we came up immediately
to a Bible conference that you were having. We stayed at the
little motel out here, just a little ways down the street there. And after the first night, we came
back to the motel room and I couldn't sleep. And I looked at her and
I said, we found our family. We have found our family. This is the message This is the
method. This is the man. And I have felt
that way ever since. And I'm thankful for all of you
and for your just so many kindnesses to me and my family. I want you to turn back for this
third time, just 2 Corinthians 5. and verse 21. We come today to that third part of three things I know about
Christ. You might say, three things I
know about Christ from 2 Corinthians 5, Let me read it again. Paul writes,
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. I know he knew no sin. And I know also by this that
he was made a sin offering for us. And we look today at why and
as what did it actually accomplish for him who knew no sin to become
a sin offering for us. He says that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. Now I thought about it, maybe
we ought to just remember who the we are. If you look back in the first
verse of 2 Corinthians 1, in the greeting of this letter,
you might say who it's addressed to. Paul says, unto the church
of God which is at Corinth with all the saints which are in all
Achaia. Maybe we ought to go back to
the first epistle that he wrote, writing it to the same people. Verse 2, in the first chapter
of 1 Corinthians, he says, unto the church of God, which is at
Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus to those that
God has set apart in Christ Jesus called saints or sanctified ones. They're not called to be that,
they're called that. God has called that, with all
that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our
Lord, both theirs and ours. These things are written to God's
elect people. There are a number of people
who do not know He has a people. But the Lord has a people that
He has given to Christ. And having given them to Christ,
He looks at them and deals with them only in Christ. And the first thing that I want
you to notice this morning is this, that we are made the righteousness
of God in Him. It does not say that we are just
made the righteousness of God Many, many, many. Leave that
last two words off. We are made the righteousness
of God in Him. That is vitally important. Because men often talk about
personal righteousness. They talk about practical righteousness. They talk about imparted righteousness,
but the only righteousness that there is for a sinner is positional
righteousness. We are made the righteousness
of God in Him. God only makes people righteous
in His Son because He is the only righteous one. There are
none righteous outside of Christ. John writes in his epistle, he
says, My little children, these things write I unto you, that
you sin not, And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is Jesus Christ, the righteous. And if you look at the Bible,
if you listen to the Word of God, if you look for yourself
through the pages of Scripture, you will find that righteousness
has to do with justice. Strong's Concordance defines
righteousness as equity, and as justification. And if we know anything about
the Bible, justification is something that God does just like He does
here. Everything begins with God, everything
is accomplished by God, and everything is in Christ Jesus. That is, God declaring us righteous
on a just basis, which can only be done in Him, in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Because God purposed that everything
He had to give to His elect, He gives them in Christ. You will never get anything from
God in His grace and mercy apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. So
be done with all this generic talk about God. God deals in
grace and mercy and righteousness in Christ. That is, by viewing
us in Christ, and dealing with us in Christ as a representative
of us, and as a federal head of all in Christ, and blessing
us in Christ, and that not mystically. I'm so tired of hearing just
talk that amounts to nothing but mysticism. He deals with
us legally before His holy and just self. You might as well
face it, God's justice is who He is. If He is going to be a Savior,
He says He is first a just God. I am a just God and a Savior. And there are lots of folks who
are talking about a Savior who have not acknowledged God first
as he says he was before a Savior, a just God as well as a Savior. He is the one who is to be just
and the justifier of those in Christ. So if we look at it plainly
stated in just one verse, Paul says, in Adam all die. That's all there is in Adam. That's all there is in our natural
collection. But he says in Christ all are
made alive. We're either in Adam or we're
in Christ. There isn't a third party or
a third choice, Adam or Christ. And he says that God has put
His people, He has put His elect in Christ, and they've been in
Him for a long time. When we first believe, He is
not just then putting us in Christ, we believe because we are in
Christ. And we've been in Him for a long
time. God put us in the everlasting
covenant with Him. We being the sheep, and He being
the shepherd, and His blood shed as the blood that ratifies that
covenant. We are in Christ Jesus. And not only that, the Bible
says that He loved us in Him, and that He loved us with an
everlasting love, and that nothing can separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus. And He chose us. It's His will. It's the divine volition. It's
God who makes the choice and He made it long ago. And He chose
His people to receive all spiritual blessings because He chose us
in Him from the foundation of the world. That's what it says
in Ephesians 1. And in this sense, we have lived
and live in Him before God, and died in Him before God, and our
death in Him is our righteousness before God. Christ made His people righteous
in God's sight, not by becoming what they are, but by dying in
their place. by dying for and paying the penalty
that was justly due our sins. And the work of righteousness
that he finished is all our righteousness and all our standing before God. There's nothing else, there's
nothing more, and there's nothing less than that. Because Messiah was to bring
in the everlasting righteousness. What God all along had purposed
and planned and determined to be the basis of our righteousness. We sang that song and we speak
of the blood and righteousness of Christ. But the truth is,
the blood is the righteousness of Christ, which is a redundant
phrase almost, because there's no righteousness without blood,
and there's no blood that is not righteous in the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shed it. And so it tells us that as He
is in this world, so are we. And we have to look and say,
is He righteous? If we're in Him, if we've been
in Him, if God put us in Him, if we have faith in Him, it's
in Him and that we find all our righteousness. And this is not
personal righteousness. And this is not practical righteousness. It's the very righteousness of
God. Don't ever let us kid ourselves. This is a real righteousness. Because it is the righteousness
of God. It is what He did and not what
we do. And regardless of how men try
to interpret what is being said in some parts of the scripture,
It still says, we're made the righteousness of God in Him. It doesn't even say by Him. It says in Him. And somebody comes along and
they say, well, but what does that mean when it talks about
us doing righteousness? such as in 1st John chapter 3
and verse 10. I'll read it to you. In this
is the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. They're going to be divided.
They're going to be manifest, they're going to be made known
for what they are, either the children of God and the children
of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. Well, that kind of sounds like
we have something to do with it, don't we? But the problem is we come to
a text like that and we just take it out of its context because
doing righteousness there is simply looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ, looking to Him for righteousness, seeking to stand before God based
on His righteous life and righteous sacrifice and no more. Well, you say, how can you be
so sure of that? By the example he gives there. Because in the example he gives
there, the example that he gives is in that 12th verse, two men,
Cain and Abel. What do we know about those men? One of them evidently did righteousness. One of them evidently did not
righteousness. What in the world did these men
do that God called righteousness? Well, we don't have any information
about that. We don't find out anywhere about
Cain being a drunkard or a liar or a whoremonger or whatever
gross immorality that you can think of. We don't find out anything
about Abel being a nice guy and a sweet fella and all that kind
of stuff and a good moral family man. All we find about those
two men determines what this means here. And the difference was Abel looked
to the one that God had appointed. He looked to the offering and
the sacrifice that God required for sin, which pictured the Lord
Jesus Christ, and evidently, he looked more for that one than
what was being offered. You turn over to Hebrews 11. Abel offered by faith this more
excellent sacrifice, and Cain simply sought to stand before
God and be accepted by God on the basis of his own works. He's not saying that if you live
right, if you do right, if you just do right, No, he's talking about looking
to the blood, the sacrifice, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because He has made us accepted
in the Beloved. He hadn't accepted us any other
way. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ is called the Way, the
Truth and the Life. There is no other one but in
the Righteous One. And we know that to say that
it is anything that man does. I heard a man define this verse
by being simply what every believer does. That's the undoing of righteousness. That's not the doing of righteousness.
That's the undoing in any time, in any way, if we are ever pointed
to any way of gaining righteousness, establishing righteousness, doing
righteousness, other than looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. What about our father Abraham? The Bible says, all the saved,
all them that believe, all the faithful, that we have Abraham
as a kind of spiritual father. Look over in Romans chapter 4. And I want to say something because
the word is going to come up in this text, the word impute
or imputation. Imputation is sometimes translated reckoned, credited. Now in imputation, It is not
God looking in the book of His justice and discovering you righteous. Well, look here. There's old
Tim James over here. I see he's righteous. I guess I'll call him righteous.
No. It's not God's discovering us
righteous. Because God is active in this. Imputation, crediting, making,
whatever you want to call it. He is active and He does something. He credits us with the righteousness
of Christ. If you'll permit me to use that
illustration of the book. He goes down the book and he
looks at Tim James' name. They had nothing there but negatives. I'm sorry, buddy. He's been my
friend a long time, but he's not righteous in himself. God looks at that book. And where there is a negative,
He removes the negative and He puts the positive there. It's like a profit loss column.
He puts Jesus Christ there. And He makes us righteous in
Him. He credits us with His righteousness. He imputes to us the very righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Look at what it says in Romans
4 here. What shall we say then that our
father Abraham, Abraham our father as pertaining to the flesh hath
found? Abraham's the same flesh as Paul
was. Even the same lineages Paul was. He says, for if Abraham were
justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. If you're
better than me, I'm glad you are. That's a low standard, but
I'm glad that you are. If you have some good to boast
in, imagine some righteousness or something, I'm glad you are
better than I am, but not before God. That's what we're talking
about here. For what saith the Scripture,
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. He believed God. His believing didn't make him
righteous. He believed God, that God had
made him righteous in another. Christ said, Abraham saw my day. He was glad. He saw my day and
he was glad. He says here, now to him that
worketh, that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace,
but of a debt. If it's anything you do, it would
have to be like paying you a salary. I can tell you, you couldn't
live off that. Somebody said, I'll pay you what
you're worth. I can't live off that. I'm sorry. And we can't live before God
on the basis of what we're worth, what we do, what we feel, what
we experience, what we sacrifice, none of that. The only thing we've earned is
death. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness. Why? Because his faith is in
Christ. Even as David also describes
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes righteousness
without works. Works don't ever enter in because God credits, God charges
His people all their account before Him. He charges them with
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. saying, blessed
are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. He's got to charge sin to somebody
because he's holy, because he's just. So in order to save us, in order
to make us righteous, He has to impute our sins to the Lord
Jesus Christ. There are people in this day
that are trying to make a mockery of imputation. This is a Bible
word and a Bible doctrine, and all I've got to say to them is
simply, If imputation is such a joke and a stupid thing, look
what happened to our race when God imputed Adam's sin to us. That was a real thing, wasn't
it? You can bet when God chose to
not impute our sins to us, they had to go to somebody. The accountability
for him had to go to somebody. The guilt of him had to go to
somebody. He's not in a waiting game. He
does everything at once. Look down in verse 22. He goes through all this thing
about Abraham and he says in verse 22, and therefore it was
imputed to him for righteousness. The margin in my Bible says counted. It was counted to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his
sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom
it shall be imputed, and that if there is sense. Sense, this is not an iffy matter. God making his people righteous
is not an iffy matter. If you will, I will. No. It doesn't
say anything about what we've done in this verse. Since we believe on Him that
raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for
our offenses and was raised again because of our justification. He'd have still be in that tomb.
He'd have to still be dead if what He offered on that cross
had not sufficed and satisfied God and made us righteous. But when God raised Him up from
the dead, just like when the priest came out of the Holy of
Holies, He came out alive and everybody's shouting hallelujah
because it means that God has accepted His work. He was delivered. To make us
better? No, for our offenses. You'll
never know how offensive your sin is to God until you look
at the cross and watch Him put a sinless, perfect, holy being
to death in the place of your sinful self and suffer the consequences
of your sin You'll never know it. You see, believing is not doing. Believing is trusting what's
done. I remember hearing one time a
fellow define faith as believing that God will do what he says
he'll do. That was one of those things
that didn't just smell right. No. Faith is first believing
that God has done what He says He's done. Because if there is
anything that He says He's done that He didn't do, you can't
believe Him for nothing else. That's why we get mixed up about
believing. Believing is simply Believing
what God says about what His Son has done. The Lord asked Peter and those
men after all that partook of the miracle walked away from
Him. He said, will you also go away? They said, Lord, we can't
go away. You've got the words of life.
And we believe. and are sure that you're the
Christ. I may not know so much, I don't
know so much, but I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God's Son,
He's God's Christ, He's God's Messiah, He's done exactly what
Messiah was to do, which was to make an end for sin on behalf
of His people. Is there any doubt that Paul
says what he says in Philippians 3? Turn over to Philippians 3. You might say that Paul is saying
here, if you think you've got a pedigree, you ought to look at mine. You
think you've got worldly connections and credentials, You ought to
look at mine. Verse 4, he says, Though I might
also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that
he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. It's just like God in His providence
and purpose set this man Saul of Tarsus up to be the the poster
child for everything that everybody can do to gain favor and popularity
with man and God. circumcised the eighth day of
the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the
Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal,
persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in
the law, blameless." Something happened. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. I count all that nothing, garbage,
poop. and be found in Him." That's my daily prayer. Lord,
don't look at me myself. Don't deal with me myself. You
should mark iniquities. I can't stand Well, deal with
me only in Him. Let me be found in Him, not having
mine own righteousness which is of the law. And I'll tell you something.
He's not simply talking about the Mosaic Law or the Ten Commandments. He's talking about any principle
of doing. as a basis for being accepted
by God. But that which is through the
faith of Christ, the faith of Christ being here the gospel, the righteousness which is of
God by faith. You only receive it God says through Isaiah in chapter
54, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou
shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me. Only God can please God. He made us the righteousness
of God, and Jesus Christ the righteous. Paul said in Romans 10, of his
own people, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going
about to establish their own righteousness, they have not
submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
The righteousness of God is in Jesus Christ, and every person
unsubmitted to Him is unsubmitted to God's righteousness, God's
way of saving sinners, based on the righteousness of Jesus
Christ, and every one of them are ignorant. They may be zealous,
as Paul said, his people were, but they're ignorant. Why? Because
they're going about. That's what religion is all about.
Going about. Doing something and feeling something
and seeing something. And not submitting to the righteousness
of God in Christ. And He gives warning. He gives
a warning about so-called ministers of righteousness. He writes to the Corinthians
also in chapter 11, and he says, therefore, it is no great thing
if his ministers, who? Whose ministers? Satan. It's no great thing if his ministers
also be transformed as ministers of righteousness. How can we tell them? If ever,
in any way, they point us to anything, faith or whatever it
is, other than the Son of God. He is all our righteousness,
which is all our acceptance before God, all our satisfaction for
our sins before God. And I hear and I read more and
more about mixtures of Christ's righteousness in ours, and it
boils down to works and grace and law and gospel. And he says, if you don't, if
you stand for God's righteousness in Christ, If you preach His righteousness
alone, if you say exactly what the Scriptures say about righteousness,
you're going to be persecuted. Because man's just got to have
a little glory. Peter said, but if you suffer
for righteousness' sake, I don't believe that's just by
doing good either, but standing for the truth of God's righteousness. Happy are you. Happy are you,
and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. You say,
like Paul said in Romans 1, I'm not ashamed. I'm not much of a preacher. Don't
have any credentials. Not even much of a person. But I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek,
for therein, in the gospel, The righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. Well, what do they live on? His
righteousness. One time, Aaron, I heard some
men talk about your dad. They said, one of them said,
he's got a lot to say about righteousness. I think they were wanting me
to join in. I told them, yes he does, and
so does everybody else who preaches the true gospel of Jesus Christ
wherein the righteousness of God is revealed. They didn't have much more to
say. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. What did he say? Get in that
ark. Judgment is coming. You're going
to face God's judgment. Get in the ark. Don't admire
it. Don't talk about it. Get in it. This is the name by which he
shall be called, the Lord, our righteousness. And those who
are married to him, I don't, I really, if you've done it,
I just, I just don't like it. When you get married and your
name is something hyphen something. I believe a woman should take
the name of her husband. It didn't make her any less,
because it pictures Christ. We take His name. Jeremiah said,
and this is the name whereby she shall be called, the Lord
our righteousness. We got the same name. We got
the same name. I determine to know nothing among
you but Christ crucified." You see, I said that God doesn't
look at His ledger and find you righteous. He opens His book
and He makes you righteous. He declares you righteous. He
writes your name down there among the righteous ones. He writes
your name there among the inhabitants of His holy Zion in Jerusalem. But by faith, we come to the
same book and we discover our names written there. He said, don't rejoice because
the devils are subject to you. Rejoice because your names are
written in heaven. Have you ever found the book
of the righteous? This is it. This is the book
of righteousness. You ever find your name written
there? Finally, I found my name written
there. It said Gary Shepherd. I know
there's a bunch of Gary Shepherds. I couldn't find any hope in that.
But it said sinner. Christ came into this world to
save sinners. Says he died for the ungodly,
those without hope, those without righteousness. I raise my hand. That's me. He came to die for
me. And Ezekiel 14 says, though,
he's talking about all the bad times in this world and the ungodliness
and the judgment of God. He said, though Noah and Daniel
and Job were in it, as I live, saith the Lord, they shall deliver
neither son or daughter. They shall but deliver their
own souls by their righteousness. by their righteousness. Who was Noah's righteousness? Who was Daniel's righteousness?
Who was Job's righteousness? Job said, I know my Redeemer,
the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't deliver anybody else. But I'll be delivering my righteousness,
because I only have one. And it's another that God given. He made me the righteousness
of God in him. Amen. I hope he does that for
you. God bless you.